ok fine, ill try again. i cant even remember what i had blogged about all those other times. i probably told you about the rest of our trip through ecuador, during which we retraced our footsteps until lima, taking about 47 16 hour bus rides, and then took one last long ass overnight ride to the northern peruvian beach town of mancora, where we finally saw the sun after 2.5 mths. we spent 3 days turning brown and eating ceviche (best yet there!). then we did a marathon day time bus trek to cuenca, passing through the unpleasant border between. honestly, it was a pleasure to return to cuenca. truth be told, though we had accepted a job teaching english here back in july, we werent sure we wanted to return to cuenca. we recalled it as a bit boring and blah, in comparison to many of the other dynamic, yet touristy, cities that we had visited. we even submitted our resumes here and there, and probably would be working somewhere else had the other schools not been crappy in comparison to CEDEI, the school in which we will be working. im really glad they were crappy, because now we are back here, and either cuenca has changed or my perspective is different now (i expect less???? surely this wasnt the change in life that i had hoped to accomplish by traveling through south america!). it has been great to be here - the city is a perfect size, we are living in a shared penthouse style apartment, the weather has improved, it is mango season, we have met some nice people, and we have acquired two cats!
more later. i am just building back my trust in Blogger, and am hesitant to post long blogs. baby steps....
Saturday, September 30, 2006
getting pissed off
in truth, i have written at least 4 different blog entries since the last, all of which have been lost by blogger. lets see what happens with this one. but hear this, Blogger: im getting pissed....
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
"a revolution without a $40 entrance fee would never work"
god.
wanna hear something REALLY annoying? sure you do. well, approx 5 days ago i was in an internet shop, writing a blog about machu picchu, like any good blogger would, when the connection was broken. no one, of course, told me, and like an idiot i kept on writing, only to look up 10 mins later and see that nothing had appeared on the screen. my work was lost. fine, this happens to people all the time, especially in s.a. when we tried to tell the guy at the internet shop that this had happened, he did Absolutely Nothing, which is rather characteristic of people in the tourism industry of southern peru (dont even get me started on the "travel agents" i cant write about it, im still too upset. ill tell you later, or carly can tell you, since i just sent her the equivilant of a 900 page email about it). anyway, since it wasnt working, and no one was fixing it, we got up to leave. the man tried to charge us for an hour and a half, when we had only been on for an hour and 10 mins. they round up, but for the past 10 mins it hadnt been working, so we argued that he should only charge us for an hour. "no, 4 soles", he said lamely. we argued with him and he said absolutely nothing in return except "no", so we paid only what we thought we should and left. he shook his head at us, but didnt move or speak beyond that. i view this as laziness, and his loss. he could have argued.
this type of shit happens at least 54 times a day, at least in the touristy areas of peru. people provide lazy, subpar service and then try, but usually dont suceed, to rip you off. its all very hostile feeling. or maybe we are the hostile ones, i dont know. but, its a definate downside of travel, and it can make one very weary.
i was feeling this way, weary, around the time we got to cuzco, which i think i told you. the magical-ness of cuzco made this weariness go away. then, we set off on our machu picchu trek, sure to be a doozy. no, this was not the heavily acclaimed inca trail, or any of the other increasingly popular, ever expensive, multi day hikes. this was the cheap-o, non planner way. this trek involved walking, sure, but it also involved all forms of transport.
the first was an overnight bus from cuzco to a town called santa maria. this was, by far, the most difficult part. the night bus was broken but, in the grand tradition of south and central american bus drivers, the driver was determined to drive it. the bottom step of the bus had fallen off, requiring one to take a flying leap or deep plunge to get wither on or off of the bus. then, the television had been stolen from its case, i guess. no matter, the bus company was diligent enough to cover the empty case with a ripped piece of pink construction paper. there was a pronographic calander from 2003 plastered to the door. a lady came on, selling onions freshly pulled from the ground, shaking them, screaming "cebolla! ce-BOLL-a!" spraying soil on everyone (and who WOULDNT want a freshly pulled onion as a snack on the night bus?). people slept in the aisles. the tire went flat and it took an hour to fix it. i man with a large parakeet cage came and sat next to, but really on, me (the german girl we were traveling with was súpposed to sit there, but when the man came on she insisted we switch seats and she got the more comfortable seat next to anthony. she said she was allergic to parakeets.) after we fixed the broken tire, 2 am now, the parakeet man revealed his true spirit as a revolutionary and incited a mini riot on the bus by screaming, i think, that the roads were built by chinese people (?) and that peru needs a military goverment. or, i need to go back to spanish school. which one do you think?? either way, there was shrill screaming for the rest of the bus ride. oh, and, on 3 seperate occassions we had to back up 30 kiometers, on the winding cliff side roads, because there was forthcoming traffic and the road wasnt wide enough to let it pass without at least one vehicle falling off the cliff. judging from the way the driver and his assistant panicked, no one had ever considered the possibility of forthcoming traffic on this 2 way road.
we got to santa maria at 4 am, just in time for the last COMBI to the next town, santa teresa. the combis ran only from 4pm to 4 am, not to be confused with 4am to 4 pm. does this seem strange to you? btw, i know i already explained combis, but i will again. they are broken down vans, with a few extra seats, that would normally hold 5 people, but typically hold 25-35. not exaggerating. anyway, we met up with a group of israelis on the combi and deduced, of course, that we were being charged 3x the normal price. the isrealis, of course, were not having it. and at that point neither were we. following in the tradition of our ever brilliant leaders, we banded together to fight for our cause, threatening to all leave the combi if we didnt get a fair price, 2x what locals pay. but the combi driver insisted and our plan was destroyed when a french couple got on and said that they didnt mind being overcharged. again with the french! so, with our feet twisted around our necks, we set off for santa teresa. we arrived there as it got light out. from here we had planned to walk 6 hours to aguas calientes, the town closest to machu picchu. but then we heard that there was a truck, one of those fun pick ups where you stand in the back and banana leaves hit you in the head, that could take us to hidroelectrico, the next stop on the way, thus cutting 2 hours off our hike. cool, we thought, we will wait. i really like those trucks.
but there was one slight problem. a white water rapid was between us and the place to catch the truck. there was no bridge. but, brilliantly, there was a zip line with a rickety one man cage attached. in order to use it one must sit cross legged in the cage and be pulled, by gravity, 1/2 way high above the wide river. the next 1/2 required manual labor, as the wire sloped upwards and one had to pull herself alone using a rope. i dont know if you can picture it, but it was kind of nerve racking. still, very fun and a totally different mode of transport. anthony and i managed to squuze in together and we made it, tho i think the line broke after us.
then there was the truck, which we wound up waiting for for 2 hours. keep in mind no one had really slept the night before, so waiting wasnt too bad, except for the mosquitos which were brutal. people spoke in different languages and built a fire to keep the bugs semi away. after the truck we set off to walk towards aguas calientes along the train tracks. the directions were simple - walk on the train tracks. we, of course, immediately got lost and wond up in the middle of the jungle, basically. some wierd bug bit me and my finger swelled up, and then we found our way out and back to the tracks. we walked on the tracks (which were not evenly spaced, by the way, so the walk became cumbersome, though not difficult) along a stream, crossing rickety bridges, for quite a few hours. then we bumped into the french people and stopped, took our clothing off, and jumped into the stream (well, not the german girl). it was cold and glorious, with big jungle leaves everywhere. i worried about piranhas. then we resumed walking for 2 more hours, finally making it to aguas calientes at 3 where we found a crappy hotel, ate a bad pizza, bought our extremely expensive ($40 each!!!!) entrance tickets to MP, and went to sleep immediately.
the next morning we woke at 3:30 to walk up to MP, thanks to a very nice american couple staying at our hotel who woke us up so we could all hike together. we ate granola bars and set off in the pitch, pitch blackness with no flashlights to walk straight up the steep hill directly to machu picchu. we could have taken a bus but i wanted to feel that i had made some sort of effort to get there, to MP, and that it was the end of a journey in a way. plus, the bus cost $6 each. so we climbed, luckily someone had built stairs, and it wasnt easy, but we were at the lowest altitude we had been in in a while, and i didnt find it all that difficult. plus it was, by far, one of the most beautiful hikes ive ever been on. after some time it began to get a little lighter out, and i could make out the big trees and ragged mountains surrounding us. i cant really explain why, but it was just so beautiful. sadly, we lost the american couple along the way, and never ran into them, so i hope they made it up there.
at the top, the light had come out. we passed through the gate and saw immediately what we had been seeing for years, but had never really seen before. the mountians were incredible, and the ruins were so much grander than i thought anything could be, and the alpacas were there too, eating the grass and peeing. and we found a rock, hovering somewhere over the whole scene, and we sat down, and we ate chocolate, and we stared.
end point: i am now broke, but no longer weary.
wanna hear something REALLY annoying? sure you do. well, approx 5 days ago i was in an internet shop, writing a blog about machu picchu, like any good blogger would, when the connection was broken. no one, of course, told me, and like an idiot i kept on writing, only to look up 10 mins later and see that nothing had appeared on the screen. my work was lost. fine, this happens to people all the time, especially in s.a. when we tried to tell the guy at the internet shop that this had happened, he did Absolutely Nothing, which is rather characteristic of people in the tourism industry of southern peru (dont even get me started on the "travel agents" i cant write about it, im still too upset. ill tell you later, or carly can tell you, since i just sent her the equivilant of a 900 page email about it). anyway, since it wasnt working, and no one was fixing it, we got up to leave. the man tried to charge us for an hour and a half, when we had only been on for an hour and 10 mins. they round up, but for the past 10 mins it hadnt been working, so we argued that he should only charge us for an hour. "no, 4 soles", he said lamely. we argued with him and he said absolutely nothing in return except "no", so we paid only what we thought we should and left. he shook his head at us, but didnt move or speak beyond that. i view this as laziness, and his loss. he could have argued.
this type of shit happens at least 54 times a day, at least in the touristy areas of peru. people provide lazy, subpar service and then try, but usually dont suceed, to rip you off. its all very hostile feeling. or maybe we are the hostile ones, i dont know. but, its a definate downside of travel, and it can make one very weary.
i was feeling this way, weary, around the time we got to cuzco, which i think i told you. the magical-ness of cuzco made this weariness go away. then, we set off on our machu picchu trek, sure to be a doozy. no, this was not the heavily acclaimed inca trail, or any of the other increasingly popular, ever expensive, multi day hikes. this was the cheap-o, non planner way. this trek involved walking, sure, but it also involved all forms of transport.
the first was an overnight bus from cuzco to a town called santa maria. this was, by far, the most difficult part. the night bus was broken but, in the grand tradition of south and central american bus drivers, the driver was determined to drive it. the bottom step of the bus had fallen off, requiring one to take a flying leap or deep plunge to get wither on or off of the bus. then, the television had been stolen from its case, i guess. no matter, the bus company was diligent enough to cover the empty case with a ripped piece of pink construction paper. there was a pronographic calander from 2003 plastered to the door. a lady came on, selling onions freshly pulled from the ground, shaking them, screaming "cebolla! ce-BOLL-a!" spraying soil on everyone (and who WOULDNT want a freshly pulled onion as a snack on the night bus?). people slept in the aisles. the tire went flat and it took an hour to fix it. i man with a large parakeet cage came and sat next to, but really on, me (the german girl we were traveling with was súpposed to sit there, but when the man came on she insisted we switch seats and she got the more comfortable seat next to anthony. she said she was allergic to parakeets.) after we fixed the broken tire, 2 am now, the parakeet man revealed his true spirit as a revolutionary and incited a mini riot on the bus by screaming, i think, that the roads were built by chinese people (?) and that peru needs a military goverment. or, i need to go back to spanish school. which one do you think?? either way, there was shrill screaming for the rest of the bus ride. oh, and, on 3 seperate occassions we had to back up 30 kiometers, on the winding cliff side roads, because there was forthcoming traffic and the road wasnt wide enough to let it pass without at least one vehicle falling off the cliff. judging from the way the driver and his assistant panicked, no one had ever considered the possibility of forthcoming traffic on this 2 way road.
we got to santa maria at 4 am, just in time for the last COMBI to the next town, santa teresa. the combis ran only from 4pm to 4 am, not to be confused with 4am to 4 pm. does this seem strange to you? btw, i know i already explained combis, but i will again. they are broken down vans, with a few extra seats, that would normally hold 5 people, but typically hold 25-35. not exaggerating. anyway, we met up with a group of israelis on the combi and deduced, of course, that we were being charged 3x the normal price. the isrealis, of course, were not having it. and at that point neither were we. following in the tradition of our ever brilliant leaders, we banded together to fight for our cause, threatening to all leave the combi if we didnt get a fair price, 2x what locals pay. but the combi driver insisted and our plan was destroyed when a french couple got on and said that they didnt mind being overcharged. again with the french! so, with our feet twisted around our necks, we set off for santa teresa. we arrived there as it got light out. from here we had planned to walk 6 hours to aguas calientes, the town closest to machu picchu. but then we heard that there was a truck, one of those fun pick ups where you stand in the back and banana leaves hit you in the head, that could take us to hidroelectrico, the next stop on the way, thus cutting 2 hours off our hike. cool, we thought, we will wait. i really like those trucks.
but there was one slight problem. a white water rapid was between us and the place to catch the truck. there was no bridge. but, brilliantly, there was a zip line with a rickety one man cage attached. in order to use it one must sit cross legged in the cage and be pulled, by gravity, 1/2 way high above the wide river. the next 1/2 required manual labor, as the wire sloped upwards and one had to pull herself alone using a rope. i dont know if you can picture it, but it was kind of nerve racking. still, very fun and a totally different mode of transport. anthony and i managed to squuze in together and we made it, tho i think the line broke after us.
then there was the truck, which we wound up waiting for for 2 hours. keep in mind no one had really slept the night before, so waiting wasnt too bad, except for the mosquitos which were brutal. people spoke in different languages and built a fire to keep the bugs semi away. after the truck we set off to walk towards aguas calientes along the train tracks. the directions were simple - walk on the train tracks. we, of course, immediately got lost and wond up in the middle of the jungle, basically. some wierd bug bit me and my finger swelled up, and then we found our way out and back to the tracks. we walked on the tracks (which were not evenly spaced, by the way, so the walk became cumbersome, though not difficult) along a stream, crossing rickety bridges, for quite a few hours. then we bumped into the french people and stopped, took our clothing off, and jumped into the stream (well, not the german girl). it was cold and glorious, with big jungle leaves everywhere. i worried about piranhas. then we resumed walking for 2 more hours, finally making it to aguas calientes at 3 where we found a crappy hotel, ate a bad pizza, bought our extremely expensive ($40 each!!!!) entrance tickets to MP, and went to sleep immediately.
the next morning we woke at 3:30 to walk up to MP, thanks to a very nice american couple staying at our hotel who woke us up so we could all hike together. we ate granola bars and set off in the pitch, pitch blackness with no flashlights to walk straight up the steep hill directly to machu picchu. we could have taken a bus but i wanted to feel that i had made some sort of effort to get there, to MP, and that it was the end of a journey in a way. plus, the bus cost $6 each. so we climbed, luckily someone had built stairs, and it wasnt easy, but we were at the lowest altitude we had been in in a while, and i didnt find it all that difficult. plus it was, by far, one of the most beautiful hikes ive ever been on. after some time it began to get a little lighter out, and i could make out the big trees and ragged mountains surrounding us. i cant really explain why, but it was just so beautiful. sadly, we lost the american couple along the way, and never ran into them, so i hope they made it up there.
at the top, the light had come out. we passed through the gate and saw immediately what we had been seeing for years, but had never really seen before. the mountians were incredible, and the ruins were so much grander than i thought anything could be, and the alpacas were there too, eating the grass and peeing. and we found a rock, hovering somewhere over the whole scene, and we sat down, and we ate chocolate, and we stared.
end point: i am now broke, but no longer weary.
Monday, September 11, 2006
cuzco: gets its own blog entry
so, i lied. we did not go to the colca canyon. read anthony´s blog about how we were truly wretched travelers in arequipa. we didnt even eat the spicy stuffed pepper, one of the regional dishes i had vowed to eat. me, too lazy to eat?! unheard of. really, i think its natural to hit a point of blahness when traveling, or doing anything for that matter. even the most interesting, novel things can turn routine, after a million interesting, novel things. one must be quite spoiled to develop this mentality. but then, i am quite spoiled.
what we need, when we reach this point (in anything in life. take teaching for example, something that has been on my mind very much recently, now that my teacher friends have all returned to work. while teaching, one might get so tired of waking up at 5 am and taking the same old train to the same old run down, jail-like edifice, to listen to the same old bullshit from the same old subpar administrator, to watch your students struggle over the same old three letter word. yes, one might get so tired of it all they think they cant stand another second. but then little jose pukes through his nose on little timmy, and everything is fascinating again.), is something even more novel and interesting. in my case, i was very lucky to come here to cuzco at just the right time.
cuzco has completely restored my traveling interests and ambitions (think of jose puking from the nose, as in the above tangent). it is a mysterious and fascinating city, and i dont know why more people dont die here. first of all, its at a very high elevation. not the highest in the world, but high enough, especially if you´re from nyc. second of all, the streets are narrow, wind-y, and cobblestone, which pretty much describes every city in peru and ecuador. but here in cuzco they take it to an extreme. the sidewalks are approximately 1.7 inches wide, and the streets are approximately 7.1 inches wide, and extravagantly steep, so it is absolutely impossible for people to walk down the street while a car is driving down it without dying. and of course, the streets are thronged with tourists, and the streets with taxis, and it is all very un-doable, yet i have yet to watch a single person be run over. incomprehensible. plus, at night they give out free drinks in every bar near the plaza de armas, of which there are 913, thus making the streets even more perilous. still, no fatalities, at leats not in the past three days, which is considerable, relatively speaking. knock wood.
so, there is the challenge of the streets which has perked my interest again. plus, in one of the mountains surrounding cuzco, someone has carved an indecipherable phrase. after much examination, i made out the words ¨peru´, ´glorioso¨, and ¨bin¨ (the uneven quotes are not my doing. thats just how the computer decided to make them, and i havent the will to battle it.) i had plently of time to puzzle over the carvings while sitting in our hostel, which is actually a converted farmhouse high up on a hill, with a beautiful view over all of cuzco. its really a great place. there is a little stone table with stumps surrounding it, which gets a lot of sun, and travelers congregate and have the same, yet interesting, conversation over and over again. we´ve met some cool people, and ive decided that i really like germans and irish. additionally, the hostel serves a buffet breakfast which consists of very sweet papaya, bananas, oranges, and grapefruits, fresh bread, blended juice, and actual brewed coffee. my heart leapt when i first spotted the coffee machine. plus, there is a huge kitchen and we are cooking again, which means we get to eat good food at low cost without further clogging our arteries with salt, lard, and fucking potatoes. really, a fantastic time.
but, we have temporarily left our hotel to embark on a mini trek to machu picchu. not the inca trail, but our own slog. tonight we take a night bus to a tiny town, take a combi (typically, this god awful delapidated minivan stuffed beyond capacity with people. last time i counted the people in a combi, there were 32. think average sized minivan, nothing big or fancy, with the door falling off) to another small town, walk 5 hours to another town, stay the night there, wake up at 4 am and walk another 2 hours, steep uphill, to machu picchu. we are doing this part with a nice german girl we met at our hostel, but will probably encounter many others along the way, as this is how its done if you have not booked a trek and are not a millionaire, as the direct train is insanely expensive. the way back will also be a trek´, not exactly doing the above in reverse but another, complicated route with less walking, as we are not so ambitious. still, better than we did in arequipa.
so, ill let you know how it went. wish us luck!!
what we need, when we reach this point (in anything in life. take teaching for example, something that has been on my mind very much recently, now that my teacher friends have all returned to work. while teaching, one might get so tired of waking up at 5 am and taking the same old train to the same old run down, jail-like edifice, to listen to the same old bullshit from the same old subpar administrator, to watch your students struggle over the same old three letter word. yes, one might get so tired of it all they think they cant stand another second. but then little jose pukes through his nose on little timmy, and everything is fascinating again.), is something even more novel and interesting. in my case, i was very lucky to come here to cuzco at just the right time.
cuzco has completely restored my traveling interests and ambitions (think of jose puking from the nose, as in the above tangent). it is a mysterious and fascinating city, and i dont know why more people dont die here. first of all, its at a very high elevation. not the highest in the world, but high enough, especially if you´re from nyc. second of all, the streets are narrow, wind-y, and cobblestone, which pretty much describes every city in peru and ecuador. but here in cuzco they take it to an extreme. the sidewalks are approximately 1.7 inches wide, and the streets are approximately 7.1 inches wide, and extravagantly steep, so it is absolutely impossible for people to walk down the street while a car is driving down it without dying. and of course, the streets are thronged with tourists, and the streets with taxis, and it is all very un-doable, yet i have yet to watch a single person be run over. incomprehensible. plus, at night they give out free drinks in every bar near the plaza de armas, of which there are 913, thus making the streets even more perilous. still, no fatalities, at leats not in the past three days, which is considerable, relatively speaking. knock wood.
so, there is the challenge of the streets which has perked my interest again. plus, in one of the mountains surrounding cuzco, someone has carved an indecipherable phrase. after much examination, i made out the words ¨peru´, ´glorioso¨, and ¨bin¨ (the uneven quotes are not my doing. thats just how the computer decided to make them, and i havent the will to battle it.) i had plently of time to puzzle over the carvings while sitting in our hostel, which is actually a converted farmhouse high up on a hill, with a beautiful view over all of cuzco. its really a great place. there is a little stone table with stumps surrounding it, which gets a lot of sun, and travelers congregate and have the same, yet interesting, conversation over and over again. we´ve met some cool people, and ive decided that i really like germans and irish. additionally, the hostel serves a buffet breakfast which consists of very sweet papaya, bananas, oranges, and grapefruits, fresh bread, blended juice, and actual brewed coffee. my heart leapt when i first spotted the coffee machine. plus, there is a huge kitchen and we are cooking again, which means we get to eat good food at low cost without further clogging our arteries with salt, lard, and fucking potatoes. really, a fantastic time.
but, we have temporarily left our hotel to embark on a mini trek to machu picchu. not the inca trail, but our own slog. tonight we take a night bus to a tiny town, take a combi (typically, this god awful delapidated minivan stuffed beyond capacity with people. last time i counted the people in a combi, there were 32. think average sized minivan, nothing big or fancy, with the door falling off) to another small town, walk 5 hours to another town, stay the night there, wake up at 4 am and walk another 2 hours, steep uphill, to machu picchu. we are doing this part with a nice german girl we met at our hostel, but will probably encounter many others along the way, as this is how its done if you have not booked a trek and are not a millionaire, as the direct train is insanely expensive. the way back will also be a trek´, not exactly doing the above in reverse but another, complicated route with less walking, as we are not so ambitious. still, better than we did in arequipa.
so, ill let you know how it went. wish us luck!!
Saturday, September 02, 2006
things in peru
a) the cordillera blanca trek. the trek was good. it was beautiful, with snowy peaks amidst turquoise lakes, green and yellow valleys, and burros galore, who were cute. it was also long. and cold - so.very.cold. at times i found myself thinking that such beauty is wasted on such a cold habitat. but thats not the right perspective to take now, is it? really, it was fantastic. we camped in the most beautiful spots, ate nice meals, cooked by our guide, under the stars, and spoke only spanish with the others on our trek; a spaniard and a swiss girl and the guides, of course. along the trek we stopped in various spots: a turqoise lake, a stream, and a snowy peak (where it snowed as we ate, btw. i told you. cold.) we ate coca leaves and drank coca tea until ur faces were numb. we saw 2 dead cows. a good time.
on the way back i was happy because
a) i could shower again
b) i could not walk for a second and
c) 4 days of walking must be rewarded. and the surefire way to reward is with food at a nice over-budget restaurant. i knew what was coming, as ant and i had been planning it since the first step of our trek. i had exquisite lasagna that night, back in huaraz, along with a (gasp) salad. ant had steak, which was fantastic, and we each had beers. it was hard to pass up the steak, but ive been really into lasagna lately. dunno why. 65 soles - way over budget for us, but about 22 bucks in US.
so now anthony is saying he wants to do another trek: the colca canyon in arequipa, outr next stop. i dunno how i feel about it. on one hand, i need the exercise, and theres sure to be a culinary reward in it. on the other hand, i think i broke my foot. it just feels broken, i can tell. and im terrifically lazy. but, in the end, ill probably do it, for the food alone. i once volunteered at a soup kitchen just for the soup. i dont want to discuss what happened when i realized that there would be no soup.
b) lima. from huaraz we went to lima. i was dreading it because we had heard such dreadful things. we stayed in miaflores, the cop out, backpacker place to stay. miraflores was not billed as much to us, many a european have disdainfully referred to it as "an american style city. not worth going to." with a wave of the hand (when surveyed, most of these people had not visited an american city since they were 2, btw). well, perhaps. but after 8 weeks of traveling, we welcomed the sight of certain luxuries, like starbucks (oh, our vices and addictions. a damn shame. a damn, lovely, sweet shame. when we saw starbucks, i jumped up and down a few times before remembering myself. and then i promptly purchased a venti vanilla latte, thus blowing our budget for the month of september. see you soon, guys.) we sat around in cafes, bought sausage and cheese (cheddar! really!) from a gourmet supermarket, saw the film little man (not going to discuss that), and went to a museum, our first in years. the museaum turned out to be quite boring. the only reason we went was because, over the phone the night before, my father raved about a special room with pornographic incan ceramics. "yey", we thought, "penises!" but sadly, when we got there, we were forced to take a tour and were shown no such room. instead we looked at 5664663 shawls. anthony behaved terribly, although he did find a mini dingus on one of the embroidered incan figurines.
c) chincha: i guess we stopped there because we read that it was one of the few black neighorhoods in peru, plus they had this great afro peruvian music. we found neither black people nor good music, but we sat in a plaza and little kids did a stompy foot kinda dance and stared at us. that part was fun. we ate greasy chicken and left at dawn the next morning.
d) pisco: was good for what we went for, which was a tour of the isla balletsas. yes, these, too, are called the poor mans galapagos. this is due to the huge population of sea lions, boobies, pelicans, and penguins. a boat took us through and around these cool rock formations and we saw tons of all types of the above. of course, the best were the sea lions, but i really took to the penguins. i cant stop thinking they are all wearing tiny tuxedos, going to some benefit dinner. it makes it very interesting to watch them, thinking this way.
after this and a few pisco sours (a salmonela inducing drink made with pisco (grape brandy) lime, sugar, and egg white. tasty! strong!), we left pisco and headed for...
e) huacachina: which is right outside of ica. now this place is really cool. keep in mind that the central south coast of peru is choked by an impermeable fog for most of the year. 3 days of it makes you want to kill yourself. we were feeling kinda glum when we left pisco, and doubted we would ever see the sun again. but when we got here it was bright as could be. huacachina is literally an oasis in a desert. its a green pond surrounded by high, white sand dunes. the thing to do here is either take an expensive buggy tour, our rent a snowboard for a dollar and surf down. we did the latter this morning, and nearly killed ourselves flying down those damn dunes. tons of fun. i discovered that if you let out a blood curdling scream the whole way down it makes it more thrilling, and no one can hear you cuz your in the middle of the desert.
plus, our sunny hotel has a pool, complete with a bar and a lounging scene. there are all you can eat and drink BBQ,s. we wnet to one last night, and maniacally shoved meat and liquor down our throats, and then fell asleep at 9:30.
next stop: arequipa and the colca canyon.
on the way back i was happy because
a) i could shower again
b) i could not walk for a second and
c) 4 days of walking must be rewarded. and the surefire way to reward is with food at a nice over-budget restaurant. i knew what was coming, as ant and i had been planning it since the first step of our trek. i had exquisite lasagna that night, back in huaraz, along with a (gasp) salad. ant had steak, which was fantastic, and we each had beers. it was hard to pass up the steak, but ive been really into lasagna lately. dunno why. 65 soles - way over budget for us, but about 22 bucks in US.
so now anthony is saying he wants to do another trek: the colca canyon in arequipa, outr next stop. i dunno how i feel about it. on one hand, i need the exercise, and theres sure to be a culinary reward in it. on the other hand, i think i broke my foot. it just feels broken, i can tell. and im terrifically lazy. but, in the end, ill probably do it, for the food alone. i once volunteered at a soup kitchen just for the soup. i dont want to discuss what happened when i realized that there would be no soup.
b) lima. from huaraz we went to lima. i was dreading it because we had heard such dreadful things. we stayed in miaflores, the cop out, backpacker place to stay. miraflores was not billed as much to us, many a european have disdainfully referred to it as "an american style city. not worth going to." with a wave of the hand (when surveyed, most of these people had not visited an american city since they were 2, btw). well, perhaps. but after 8 weeks of traveling, we welcomed the sight of certain luxuries, like starbucks (oh, our vices and addictions. a damn shame. a damn, lovely, sweet shame. when we saw starbucks, i jumped up and down a few times before remembering myself. and then i promptly purchased a venti vanilla latte, thus blowing our budget for the month of september. see you soon, guys.) we sat around in cafes, bought sausage and cheese (cheddar! really!) from a gourmet supermarket, saw the film little man (not going to discuss that), and went to a museum, our first in years. the museaum turned out to be quite boring. the only reason we went was because, over the phone the night before, my father raved about a special room with pornographic incan ceramics. "yey", we thought, "penises!" but sadly, when we got there, we were forced to take a tour and were shown no such room. instead we looked at 5664663 shawls. anthony behaved terribly, although he did find a mini dingus on one of the embroidered incan figurines.
c) chincha: i guess we stopped there because we read that it was one of the few black neighorhoods in peru, plus they had this great afro peruvian music. we found neither black people nor good music, but we sat in a plaza and little kids did a stompy foot kinda dance and stared at us. that part was fun. we ate greasy chicken and left at dawn the next morning.
d) pisco: was good for what we went for, which was a tour of the isla balletsas. yes, these, too, are called the poor mans galapagos. this is due to the huge population of sea lions, boobies, pelicans, and penguins. a boat took us through and around these cool rock formations and we saw tons of all types of the above. of course, the best were the sea lions, but i really took to the penguins. i cant stop thinking they are all wearing tiny tuxedos, going to some benefit dinner. it makes it very interesting to watch them, thinking this way.
after this and a few pisco sours (a salmonela inducing drink made with pisco (grape brandy) lime, sugar, and egg white. tasty! strong!), we left pisco and headed for...
e) huacachina: which is right outside of ica. now this place is really cool. keep in mind that the central south coast of peru is choked by an impermeable fog for most of the year. 3 days of it makes you want to kill yourself. we were feeling kinda glum when we left pisco, and doubted we would ever see the sun again. but when we got here it was bright as could be. huacachina is literally an oasis in a desert. its a green pond surrounded by high, white sand dunes. the thing to do here is either take an expensive buggy tour, our rent a snowboard for a dollar and surf down. we did the latter this morning, and nearly killed ourselves flying down those damn dunes. tons of fun. i discovered that if you let out a blood curdling scream the whole way down it makes it more thrilling, and no one can hear you cuz your in the middle of the desert.
plus, our sunny hotel has a pool, complete with a bar and a lounging scene. there are all you can eat and drink BBQ,s. we wnet to one last night, and maniacally shoved meat and liquor down our throats, and then fell asleep at 9:30.
next stop: arequipa and the colca canyon.
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